The Fainting Robin
by Caru Pendragon
Summary: This is an alternate ending to Aldous Huxley's book Brave New World. I don't know what else to say, except that if you haven't finished the book, please do so before reading this!


**Disclaimer: **I don't own Brave New World, but I own this plot. Also: The first two and last six paragraphs were written by Aldous Huxley - I just borrowed them. The first poem was written by Emily Dickinson, and the second is a Samar Fisherman's song, from the Philippines. Thanks and enjoy!

It was after midnight when the last of the helicopters took its flight. Stupefied by _soma_, and exhausted by a long-drawn frenzy of sensuality, the Savage lay sleeping in the heather. The sun was already high when he awoke. He lay for a moment, blinking in owlish incomprehension at the light; the suddenly remembered – everything.

"Oh, my God, my God!" He covered his eyes with his hand.

There were soft footsteps in the heather, near his side. For another moment, he thought they might be Linda's, or even Lenina's – Oh, how he wished they were Lenina's! But – "Strumpet!" He shouted, sitting up quickly, "Damned whore!" And cast about for his whip.

There was a girl squatting in the heather next to him, the bunch of knotted cords in one hand. The fingers of her other hand twined the cords around themselves as she stared intensely at him.

"Why don't you leave me alone?" The Savage said, moving as if to rise. "You've all had your sport with me, so go!" He waved his hand at her, as if to make her disappear. "Go!" He said, his tone becoming less angry and more despairing.

She didn't speak, and didn't move except for her fingers sliding up and down the cords, just continued to watch him with a strange, passionate look in her eyes.

And her eyes were the striking thing about her – golden as honey, set in a tanned, heart-shaped face framed with dark brown hair. She wore a simple tunic of light blue covered with strange symbols – endless knots and strange animals – and real doeskin moccasins (although of a different style than he was used to) that had made her footsteps almost silent. The corners of her mouth and peculiar eyes twitched upward, and she stood, holding the whip out to him.

The Savage scrambled to his feet, his pale blue eyes held in the calm steady gaze of the girl's golden ones. He wanted to speak, to ask her why and how and who, but found he could not. There seemed to be something in his throat, something that tightened the muscles and stopped the words from coming. Tears! He reached for the whip.

In an instant, the girl had grabbed his wrist and pulled him to her, pressing their foreheads together. "John." She said his name softly, her eyes glowing with love or sadness, he could not tell which, "Do you want salvation, John? Life and Death and poetry and art and sadness and love and everything you dream of?" He nodded, and she kissed his lips tenderly, a kiss so light is was almost as if he had imagined it, but it drew out of him something sacred – his soul, his spirit, the pure inner core of his being that shone with a brilliant light – and he had the sensation of becoming two people.

"Come." She said quietly, pulling his arm, "Come, then, John."

It seemed as if the world had suddenly leapt into a brighter clarity, had sprung suddenly to a newer, more vibrant life. The air had the taste of rain just fallen, and everything looked sharper, cleaner, as if after a storm. And John, the man that knew night and solitude, that had discovered Time and Death and God alone on a mesa that was pale under the moonlight, let her lead him across the heather and back into the lighthouse.

The Savage, Mustapha Mond's experiment, society's newest curiosity, the unclean, unworthy self was left behind in the darkness.

John followed her, unresisting, into the lighthouse. But as they reached the foot of the stairs, he stopped. The anger flowed back into him once more, and he was once again just the Savage, a misfit who did not belong anywhere. "Who are you?" He demanded, his lip pulled up to reveal his incisors. "The others have had their fun. Why can't you all just leave me in peace?" Then, remembering the pitiful caste system of the city, he said; "You're just an Alpha, here to torment me some more, aren't you?"

This made the girl tilt her head, and a solemn air filled her eyes. "Alpha?" She said, sounding a bit confused, and paused to think. "No," She said at last, "No, I'm not the beginning. Far from it." Her eyes met his again, and laughter shone in her eyes. "I am the Omega." She pressed his hand briefly and smiled. "But come, John. It's time to go."

"But why?" He asked, the anger, now turned into suspicion, still in his eyes. "Why me? Why?" The word pounded over and over between them, until it escaped out the half-closed door.

Hurt brimmed in her eyes and she lowered them, silent for a moment, then spoke;

"_If I can stop one heart from breaking,_

_I shall not lie in vain._

_If I can ease one life the aching,_

_Or cool one pain,_

_Or help one fainting robin_

_Until his nest again,_

_I shall not live in vain." _

A look of confusion crossed his face, and the girl raised her eyes and put one hand gently on his cheek. "Don't you see, John?" She asked, sorrow flashing in her eyes, "_You_ are my fainting robin, one who I will help to find his nest again."

Her words made the tears tighten his throat a second time and brim in his eyes. Nodding, he managed to force out two strangled words before a sob threatened to escape. "Thank you."

The sorrow intensified in the girl's eyes, and she drew him into an embrace. "John." She whispered, "Oh, John, my poor robin, my poor, poor Savage." She kissed him again, separating John from the Savage once more. "Let us go." There was a whinny outside, and the clattering of hooves.

Her golden eyes were suddenly lit with happiness when the girl heard them. "It's time, John!" She said, smiling. Grabbing his hand and pulling him back outside. The Savage stayed behind.

There were horses gathered in front of his lighthouse – twelve of them, and upon each(save for one) perched a man, each dressed in a variation of the girl's tunic and moccasins, and each different from the other. Oh! What a welcome sight! John laughed aloud with delight. There was no doubt – these were not members of the so called "civilized" society, oh no! They were from somewhere different, older, better. God Himself seemed to shine upon these people, bathing them in a holy light. John was overcome with joy.

The girl led John to the side of a huge grey stallion and helped him mount it. She sat in front of him, and, clicking to her horse, she began to ride away. As the horses began to gallop, harnesses to jingle and leather to creak, the girl began to sing with wild abandon, head thrown back and happiness echoing in her voice.

"_Brothers of the sea,_

_Look at the stars,_

_Look at the deep blue_

_And set the world free._

_Our right is to live and be free;_

_Freedom will not come from outside._

_It is only in ourselves united."_

The Savage, the unclean, the one unfit to follow John was left standing in the foyer of the lighthouse. The girl had given him silent instructions, as well, and now he went to follow them, to return the fainting robin to it's nest, to unite John within himself once more and finally give him true freedom. The Savage walked slowly up the stairs, a cloak of darkness pooled around him.

That evening the swarm of helicopters that came buzzing across the Hog's Back was a dark cloud ten kilometers long. The description of last night's orgy of atonement had been in all the papers.

"Savage!" called the first arrivals, as they alighted from their machine. "Mr. Savage!"

There was no answer.

The door of the lighthouse was ajar. They pushed it open and walked into a shuttered twilight. Through an archway on the further side of the room they could see the bottom of the staircase that led up to the higher floors. Just under the crown of the arch dangled a pair of feet.

"Mr. Savage!"

Slowly, very slowly, like two unhurried compass needles, the feet turned towards the right; north, north-east, east, south-east, south, south-south-west; then paused, and, after a few seconds, turned as unhurriedly back towards the left. South-south-west, south, south-east, east…


End file.
